Is not every day that I find I classical recording that absolutely baffles me. This one is one of those.
Anne-Sophie Mutter is a revered violinist in the classical music world. Her technique and skills are amazing, she’s a virtuoso beyond question. I never figured her as much of a baroque expert, though. When I was looking for a new version, in modern instruments, of Antonio Vivaldi’s magnificent “Quattro Stagioni” (The Four Seasons), I certainly got very optimistic when I saw her in the cover, though I also felt somewhat cautious. Would she do a overly romantic reading of the score? Would she play it safe?
It turns out, she really did whatever she wanted with Vivaldi’s music. This is no mere romanticizing of a baroque work; this is 100% making it a virtuoso fest, suited totally to the emotions and the desires of the interpreter. Mutter, leading the Trondheim Soloist in this recording, makes the most out of the music for her own benefit, sometimes getting on the way of a more fluid discourse for the score. The slow parts are excruciatingly slow, the pianissimo parts are so low they can’t be heard, and on the other hand, the forte parts are loud as thunder, and the fast parts played at speeds that would probably make Vivaldi faint in amazement. Though it works from time to time, Mutter’s playing with the tempos and the accents got on my nerves in more than one occasion.
“Spring” is harmless enough. By the end of the last movement, we’re certain a storm is about to arrive, and not just one created by Vivaldi in the music. “Summer” is a complete different beast. It starts glacially slow and quiet, then it builds up tension, until it explodes in the fast section. All works well enough though the solo violin parts seem to have been taken from a Paganini concert instead of from a Vivaldi one; the last movement of the concert, though, just leaves me trying to catch my breath. The speed is unbelievable, the ensemble and the soloist trying to show us how fast this music can really go. The breaks in-between the bursts of speed are contrastingly slow, to a point where the work starts to feel more like a rhapsody made of different barely-related parts than like a baroque violin concert. “Autumn” gets a very solemn treatment in the last movement (the one where recordings usually fail to impress me), the hunting march moving forward with an impulse and determination rarely heard. “Winter”, as the darkest, at times fastest concert of the four, is probably the more chaotic here, and the rhapsodic feel returns, with stark contrasts that go from pianissimo to fortissimo in the blink of an eye, with fast sections played so violently that, without exaggeration, make the music sound almost like metal.
In the end, this is an unusual reading of the score, probably not one for baroque purists, but one that, once understood, can provide a lot of enjoyment. It certainly is one of the most romantic, expressive, and definitely, FASTEST “Four Seasons” around. I’d recommend it but with reserves. Try a more relaxed version first. Then aim for an authentic-instruments one. Then you will be ready for the display of pyrotechnics that this album contains.
As a side note, there’s also a recording of Giuseppe Tartini’s “Devil Trill” Sonata in the album. Though it totally pales in comparison with Vivaldi’s superb music, it’s a nice piece that showcases a more earthly, less thunderous side of Mutter’s playing.
3.5/5
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